Читать книгу A Coffin from Hong Kong / Гроб из Гонконга. Книга для чтения на английском языке - Джеймс Хедли Чейз, Джеймс Чейз - Страница 4

At the back of police headquarters there is a large yard surrounded by an eight-foot high wall. Here, the police park their patrol cars, the riot squad trucks and the fast cars that rush experts to any emergency.

On one of the walls is a big notice that says in large red letters against a white background this park is for police vehicles only.

I swung my car through the open gateway and parked carefully beside a patrol car. As I cut the engine, a cop appeared from nowhere, his red Irish face showing violent fury.

“Hey! What’s the matter with you? Can’t you read?” he bawled in a voice that could be heard two blocks away.

“Nothing’s the matter with me,” I said as I removed the key from the ignition, “and I can read – even the long words.”

I thought he was going to explode. For a long moment he opened and shut his mouth while he struggled to frame words violent enough for the occasion.

Before he could give utterance, I said, smiling at him through the open window of my car, “Detective Lieutenant Retnick, the Mayor’s brother-in-law, told me to park here. Take it up with him[34] if you feel badly about it, but don’t blame me if you get yourself kicked humpbacked.”

He looked as if he had suddenly swallowed a bee. For two long seconds he glared at me, his mouth working, then he stalked away.

I sat staring into space for perhaps twenty minutes, then a car came into the yard and parked within ten feet of me. Retnick got out and started towards a door that led into the grey stone building that was police headquarters.

“Lieutenant…”

I didn’t raise my voice but he heard me. He looked over his shoulder at me. He stiffened as if someone had goosed him with a branding iron, then he came over fast.

“What do you imagine you are doing here?” he demanded.

“Waiting for you,” I said.

He considered this, staring intently at me. “Well, I’m here – now what?”

I got out of the car.

“You searched me, Lieutenant, but you forgot to search my car.”

He became very still, breathing heavily through his pinched nostrils, his hard watchful eyes alert.

“Why should I search your car, shamus?”

“You wanted to know what the yellow skin, as you call her, had in her handbag that had tempted me to shoot her in my office with my gun. You didn’t find it in my office nor in my pockets. I should have thought a really keen cop would have checked my car to make sure I hadn’t hidden the motive for murder there. So I’ve brought the car along just in case you wanted to be a really keen cop.”

His face tightened with fury.

“Listen, you son-of-a-bitch,” he mouthed. “I don’t take smart talk from a cheap peeper. I’ll get Pulski to handle you! He’ll take the shine off your wit! You’re too goddam smart to stay in one piece!”

“Better look in the car first before you feed me to your meat-grinder, Lieutenant. Look in the glove compartment. It’ll save time.”

I stepped away from the car, letting the car door swing open.

His eyes smouldering, Retnick leaned into the car and yanked open the glove compartment. I watched his reactions. His fury died. He didn’t touch either the gun or the handbag. He looked for a long moment, then turned to me.”Is that your gun?”

“Yes.”

“Her handbag?”

“It adds up, doesn’t it?”

He studied me, puzzled.

“What the hell’s this? You ready to make a statement admitting you killed her?”

“I’m laying the cards face up as they’re dealt to me,” I said. “I can’t do more than that. It’s up to you what you make of it.”

He bawled to the cop guarding the gate. When the cop came over, Retnick told him to get Pulski fast.

While we waited, Retnick again looked at the gun and the handbag without touching them. “I wouldn’t give two bits[35] for your chance of survival now, shamus,” he said. “Not two bits.”

“I wouldn’t give two bits myself if I hadn’t come here to show you what I found,” I said, “but since I’ve come, I’ll gamble two bits but no more.”

“Do you always lock your car?” he asked, staring at me as his brain creaked into action.

“Yes, but I have a duplicate key in the drawer where I keep my gun. I didn’t look but I bet it isn’t there now.”

Retnick scratched the side of his face with a rasping sound. “That’s right. When I looked for the gun, I didn’t see any key.”

Pulski came pounding across the yard.

“Give this car the works[36]”, Retnick said to him. “Check everything. Careful how you handle the gun and the handbag. Better let Lacey look at the gun. Get moving.”

He nodded to me and we walked across the yard, up the three steps, through the doorway into a dimly-lit white-tiled passage that smelt the way all cops houses smell.

We tramped down a corridor, up a flight of stairs, down a corridor and into a room the size of a hen coop. There was a desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet and a window. It was as cosy and as comfortable as an orphanage’s common room.

Retnick waved me to an upright chair while he eased his way around the desk and sat in the chair behind it.

“This your office?” I asked interested. “I’d have thought you being the Mayor’s brother-in-law, they would have fitted you up with something more plush.”

“Never mind how I live: concentrate on your own misfortunes,” Retnick said. “If that’s the gun that killed her and that’s her handbag, you’re as good as dead.”

“Do you think so?” I said, trying to make myself comfortable on the upright chair. “You know for ten minutes, maybe even longer, I struggled against the temptation of ditching the gun and the handbag in the sea and if I had ditched them, Lieutenant, neither you nor all the bright boys who take care of the law in this city would have been any the wiser[37], but I decided to give you a break.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I didn’t ditch them because they had been so obviously planted in my car. It all adds up to a plant – the whole set-up. If I had ditched them, you might not be able to break the case.”

He cocked his head on one side: he was good at doing that.

“So I have the gun and the handbag: what makes you think I’m going to break this goddam case?”

“Because you’re not going to concentrate on me, you’re going to look for the killer and that’s what he doesn’t want you to do.”

He brooded for a long moment, then he took out his cigar case and offered it to me. This was his first friendly act during the five years I had known him. I took a cigar to show I appreciated the gesture although I am not by nature a cigar smoker.

We lit up and breathed smoke at each other.

“Okay, Ryan,” he said. “I believe you. I’d like to think you knocked her off, but it’s leaning too far backwards. I’d be saving myself a hell of a lot of trouble and time if I could believe it, but I can’t. You’re a cheap peeper, but you’re not a fool. Okay, so I’m sold. You’re being framed.”

I relaxed.

“But don’t count on me,” he went on. “The trouble will be to convince the D.A.[38] He’s an impatient bastard. Once he knows what I’ve got on you, he’ll move in. Why should he care so long as he gets a conviction?” There didn’t seem anything to say to that so I didn’t say it.

He stared out of the window that gave onto a view of the back of a tenement building with badly washed laundry hanging on strings and baby carriages on balconies.

“I’ve got to dig around before I can make up my mind about you,” he said finally. “I can book you as a material witness or I can ask you to stick around voluntarily. What’s it to be?”

“I’ll stick around,’’ I said.

He reached for his telephone. “I want you,” he said when a voice sounded over the line.

There was a pause, then the door pushed open and a young plain-clothes man came in. He was the eager-beaver[39] type. I could see, so far, police work hadn’t soured him. He looked at Retnick the way a friendly dog looks for a bone.

With an expression of distaste, as if he were introducing a poor relation, Retnick waved to me.

“This is Nelson Ryan: a shamus. Take him away and keep him amused until I want him.” He looked at me. “This is Patterson. He’s just joined the force: don’t corrupt him faster than he need be.”

I went with Patterson down the corridor and into another small room that smelt of stale sweat, fear and disinfectant. I sat down by the window while Patterson, looking puzzled, squatted on the edge of a desk.

“Relax,” I said. “We’ll probably be here for hours. Your boss is trying to prove I murdered a Chinese woman and he hasn’t a chance to prove it.”

His eyes bugged out as he stared at me.

Trying to put him at ease, I offered him the half-smoked cigar Retnick had given me. “This is a museum piece. Would you like to have it for your collection? It’s Retnick’s. You have a museum?”

His young, eager face turned to stone. He looked almost like a cop. “Listen, let me tell you something. We don’t like…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, waving my hand to cut him short. “I’ve heard that one before. Retnick tells it better. I stir up the dust. I get in your way. I bother you boys. Okay, so what? I make a living the same as you. Can’t I kid you a little[40] or are you that sensitive?”

I grinned at him, and after a moment’s hesitation, he relaxed and grinned back. From then on we got along fine.

Around lunch-time a cop brought us a meat pie and some beans which we ate. Patterson seemed to think the pie was pretty good, but then he was young and hungry. I toyed with mine and sent most of it back. After this so-called lunch, he got out a deck of cards and we played gin rummy for matches. After I had taken a whole box off him, I showed him how I was cheating him. This seemed to shock him until I offered to teach him how it was done. He made a very enthusiastic pupil.

Around eight o’clock the same cop brought more meat pie and more beans. We ate the stuff because by now we were so goddam bored we would have eaten anything just for the hell of it. We played more gin rummy and he cheated so well he took a whole box of matches off me. Around midnight, the telephone bell rang. He picked up the receiver, listened, then said, “Yes, sir,” and hung up. “Lieutenant Retnick is ready for you now,” he said getting to his feet.

We both felt the way people feel when the train at last steams out of the station and they can stop talking the way people talk when seeing people off at a station.

We went down the corridor to Retnick’s office. Retnick was sitting at his desk. He looked tired and worried. He waved me to a chair and waved Patterson away. When Patterson had gone, I sat down.

There was a long pause as we stared at each other.

“You’re a lucky guy, Ryan,” he said eventually. “Okay, I didn’t think you killed her, but I was goddam sure the D.A. would have thought so if I’d turned you over to him. Now I can persuade him you didn’t do it. Consider yourself a lucky son-of-a-bitch.”

I had been in this building for fifteen hours. There had been times when I had wondered if I had played my cards right. I had had moments of near-panic, but now hearing what he said, I relaxed, drawing in a deep breath. “So I’m lucky,” I said.

“Yeah.” He slid down in his chair and groped for a cigar. Then realising he had a dead one between his teeth, he took it out, sneered at it and dropped it into the trash-basket. “I’ve had practically the whole of the force working on this thing for the past fourteen hours. We’ve turned up a witness who saw you in your car at two-thirty this morning on Connaught Boulevard. The witness happens to be an attorney who hates the D.A.’s guts and he had his wife with him. His evidence would blow a great big hole in any case the D.A. might have cooked up against you. So, okay, you didn’t kill her.”

“Would it be nosey to ask if you have any idea who did kill her?”

He offered me his cigar case: this time I could afford to refuse. As he put the case back in his pocket, he said, “It’s too early yet. Whoever he is, he’s played it neat. No clues: no nothing so far[41].”

“Didn’t you get a line on the Chinese woman?”

“Oh, sure, that wasn’t hard. There was nothing but the usual junk a woman carries in the handbag, but we got her spotted at the airport. She came from Hong Kong. Her name is Jo-An Jefferson. Believe it or not, she’s the daughter-in-law of J. Wilbur Jefferson, the oil millionaire. She married the son, Herman Jefferson, in Hong Kong about a year ago. He was recently killed in a car smash and she brought his body back for burial.”

“Why?” I asked, staring at him.

“Old man Jefferson wanted his son buried in the family vault. He paid this girl to come over with the body.”

“What’s happened to the body?”

“It was picked up at the airport by a mortician at seven o’clock this morning, acting on orders. It’s at his parlour waiting interment.”

“You checked that?”

He yawned, showing me half his false teeth.

“Listen, shamus, you don’t have to tell me my job. I’ve seen the coffin and inspected the papers: everything’s in order. She flew in from Hong Kong, arriving here at one-thirty. She took a taxi from the airport to your office block. What beats me is why she came to see you immediately she arrived and how her killer knew she was coming to see you. What did she want with you?”

“Yeah. If she was from Hong Kong, how would she know I existed?” I said.

“Your idea she telephoned for an appointment around seven after you had left your office is out. She was in the air at that time. If she had written, you would have known about it.”

I thought for a moment.

“Suppose Hardwick met her at the airport? He called me from the airport at six. Suppose he waited for her to arrive and told her he was me. Suppose he went on ahead while she was clearing the coffin through the authorities and slipped the lock on the outer door. A lock isn’t too hard to slip and then waited for her to join him.”

He didn’t seem to like this idea much: nor did I.

“But what the hell did she want with you?” he demanded.

“If we knew that we wouldn’t be asking each other questions. How about her luggage? Did you locate it?”

“Yeah. She checked it in at the left-luggage office before leaving the airport: one small suitcase; nothing in it except a change of clothes, a small Buddha and some joss sticks. She certainly travelled light[42].”

“Have you talked to old man Jefferson yet?”

He pulled a face. “Yeah, I’ve talked to him. He acted as if he hated my guts. I think he does. That’s the hell of marrying into an influential family. My brother-in-law and Jefferson get along like I get along with a boil on my neck.”

“Still it has its compensations,” I said.

He fingered his pearl stick-pin.

“Sometimes. Anyway, the old goat didn’t let his hair down. He said he wanted me to catch the man who had killed his daughter-in-law, otherwise there would be trouble.” He stroked his beaky nose. “He draws a lot of water in this city.[43] He could make trouble for me.”

“He wasn’t helpful?”

“He certainly wasn’t.”

“How about the Express messenger who delivered the three hundred bucks to me? He could have seen the killer.”

“Look, shamus, you’re not half the ball of fire you think you are. I checked on him: nothing. But this is interesting: the envelope containing the dough was handed in at four o’clock at the Express headquarters which as you know is across the way from you. None of the dim-witted clerks can remember who handed it in, but the instructions were to deliver it to you at six-fifteen.”

“You checked Herron Corporation to see if Hardwick works there?”

“Yeah. I’ve checked every goddam thing. He doesn’t work for them.” He yawned, stretched, then stood up. “I’m going to bed. Maybe tomorrow I’ll strike something. Right now I’ve had enough of it.”

I got up too. “It was my gun that killed her?”

“Yeah. No prints: nothing on the car. He’s a neat bird, but he’ll make a mistake… they always do.”

“Some of them.”

He looked sleepily at me.

“I’ve done you a good turn[44], Ryan, you try to do me one. Any ideas you get, let me know. Right now I need ideas.”

I said I wouldn’t forget him. I went down to where I had left my car and drove fast back to my apartment and to my bed.

I got to the office the next morning soon after nine o’clock. I found a couple of newspaper men parked outside my door. They wanted to know where I had been all yesterday. They had been trying to get to me to hear my side of the murder story and they were irate they hadn’t been able to find me.

I took them into my office and told them I had spent the day at police headquarters. I said I knew no more about the murder than they did, probably less. No, I had no idea why the Chinese woman had come to my office at such an hour nor how she had got into the building. They spent half an hour shooting questions at me, but it was a waste of their time. Finally, disgruntled, they went off.

I looked through my mail and dropped most of it into the trash-basket. There was a letter from a woman living on Palma Mountain who wanted me to find the person who had poisoned her dog.

I was typing her a polite letter telling her I was too busy to help her when there came a knock on my door. I said to come in.

Jay Wayde, my next-door neighbour, came in. He looked slightly embarrassed as he came to rest a few feet from my desk.

“Am I disturbing you?” he asked. “It’s not my business really, but I wondered if they had found out who killed her.”

His curiosity didn’t surprise me. He was one of those brainy types who can’t resist mixing themselves up with crime.

“No,” I said.

“I don’t suppose it helps,” he said apologetically, “but thinking about this, I remember hearing your telephone bell ring around seven o’clock. It rang for some time. That was after you had left.”

“My telephone is always ringing,” I said, “but thanks. Maybe it might help. I’ll tell Lieutenant Retnick.”

He ran his hand over his close-cropped hair.

“I just thought… I mean in a murder investigation every little thing can be important until it is proved otherwise.” He moved restlessly. “It’s an odd thing the way she got into your office, isn’t it? I guess it has been a bit difficult for you.”

“She got into my office because the killer let her in,” I said, “and it hasn’t been difficult for me.”

“Well, that’s good. Did they find out who she was?”

“Her name is Jo-An Jefferson and she’s from Hong Kong.”

“Jefferson?” He became alert. “I know a friend named Herman Jefferson who went out to Hong Kong: an old school friend.”

I tilted back my chair so I could put my feet on the desk.

“Sit down,” I said. “Tell me about Herman Jefferson. The Chinese woman was his wife.”

That really shook him. He sat down and gaped at me. “Herman’s wife? He married a Chinese?”

“So it seems.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!”

I waited, watching him. He thought for a moment, then said, “Not that it shocks me. I’ve heard Chinese girls can be attractive, but I can’t imagine his father would be pleased.” He frowned, shaking his head. “What was she doing here?”

“She brought her husband’s body back for burial.”

He stiffened. “You mean Herman’s dead?”

“Last week… a car accident.”

He seemed completely thrown off balance. He sat there, staring blankly as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard.

“Herman… dead! I’m sorry,” he said at last. “This will be a shock to his father.”

“I guess so. Did you know him well?”

“Well, no. We were at school together. He was a reckless fella[45]. He was always getting into trouble: fooling around with girls, driving like a madman, but I admired him. You know how kids are. I looked on him as a bit of a hero. Then later, after I had gone through college, I changed my views about him. He didn’t seem to grow up. He was always drinking and getting into fights and raising general hell[46]. I dropped him. Finally, his father got tired of him and shipped him out East. That would be some five years ago. His father has interests out there.” He crossed one leg over the other. “So he married a Chinese girl. That certainly is surprising.”

“It happens,” I said.

“He died in a car accident? He was always getting into car smashes. I wonder he lasted as he did.” He looked at me. “You know to me this is damned intriguing. Why was she murdered?”

“That’s what the police are trying to find out.”

“It’s a problem, isn’t it? I mean, why did she come here to see you? It really is a mystery, isn’t it?”

I was getting a little bored with his enthusiasm.

“Yeah,” I said.

Through the wall, I heard a telephone bell start ringing. He got to his feet. “I’m neglecting my business and wasting your time,” he said. “If I can remember anything about Herman that I think might help, I’ll let you know.”

I said I’d be glad and watched him leave, closing the door after him.

I sank lower in my chair and brooded over what he had told me. I was still sitting there, twenty minutes later, still brooding and still getting nowhere when the telephone bell jerked me out of my lethargy. I scooped up the receiver.

“This is Mr. J. Wilbur Jefferson’s secretary,” a girl’s voice said: a nice, clear voice that was easy to listen to. “Is that Mr. Ryan?”

I said it was.

“Mr. Jefferson would like to see you. Could you come this afternoon at three o’clock?”

I felt a sharp stirring of interest as I opened my date book and surveyed its blank pages. I had no appointment for three o’clock this afternoon: come to that[47], I had no appointment for any day this week. “I’ll be there,” I said.

“It is the last house, facing the sea on Beach Drive,” she told me. “Beach View.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Thank you.” She hung up.

I held the receiver against my ear for a brief moment while I tried to recapture the sound of her voice. I wondered what she looked like. Her voice sounded young, but voices can be deceptive. I hung up. My morning passed without incident. I envied Jay Wayde whose telephone seemed to be constantly ringing. I could also hear the continuous clack-clack of a typewriter. He was obviously a lot busier than I, but then I had the mysterious Mr. Hardwick’s three hundred dollars to keep me from starving anyway for a couple of weeks.

No one came near me, and around one o’clock I went down to the Quick Snack Bar for the usual sandwich. Sparrow was busy so he couldn’t bother me with questions, although I could see he was itching to be brought up to date on the murder. I left with the rush hour still in full swing[48], aware of his reproachful expression as I left without telling him anything.

Later, I drove out to Beach Drive, the lush-plush district of Pasadena City. Here, rich retired people lived with their own private beaches, away from the crowds that invaded the city during the summer months.

I reached the gates of Beach View a few minutes to three o’clock. They stood open as if I were expected and I drove up a forty-yard drive, bordered on either side by well-kept lawns and flower-beds.

The house was overlarge and had an old-fashioned air. Six broad white steps led up to the front entrance. There was a hanging bell-pull and the front door was of fumed oak.

I pulled the chain and after a minute or so, the door opened. The butler was a tall gloomy-looking old man who stared impassively at me; raising one busy eyebrow inquiringly.

“Nelson Ryan,” I said. “I’m expected.”

He moved aside and motioned me into the dark hall full of heavy dark furniture. I followed him down a passage and into a small room containing a few uncomfortable-looking chairs and a table on which lay some glossy magazines: a room that had the atmosphere of a dentist’s reception-room. He indicated one of the chairs and went away.

I stood around for about ten minutes, looking out of the window at the view of the sea, then the door opened and a girl came in.

She was around twenty-eight to thirty, slightly taller than average: dark, nice to look at without being sensational. Her eyes were slate blue, intelligent and remote. She had on a dark blue dress that merely hinted of her well-shaped body. The neckline was severe and the skirt length modest.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Mr. Ryan,” she said. Her smile was slight and impersonal. “Mr. Jefferson is ready for you now.”

“You are his secretary?” I asked, recognising the clear, quiet voice.

“Yes. I’m Janet West. I’ll show you the way.”

I followed her out into the passage and through a green baize door into a big old-fashioned but comfortable lounge lined with books and with double windows opening onto a secluded walled garden full of standard rose trees that were giving of their best.

J. Wilbur Jefferson was reclining on a bed-chair, fitted with wheels. He lay in the shade just outside the double windows: an old man, tall, thin and aristocratic with a big hooked nose, skin as yellow as old ivory, hair like white spun glass and thin fine hands heavily veined. He was wearing a white linen suit and white buckskin shoes. He turned his head to look at me as I followed Janet West into the garden.

“Mr. Ryan,’’ she said, drawing aside and motioning me forward, then she went away.

“Use that chair,” Jefferson said, pointing to a basket chair close to him. “My hearing isn’t as good as it was so I’ll ask you to keep your voice up. If you want to smoke… smoke. It’s a vice I have been forced to give up now for more than six years.”

I sat down, but I didn’t light a cigarette. I had an idea he might not like cigarettes. When he had smoked, he would have smoked cigars.

“I’ve made inquiries about you, Mr. Ryan,” he went on after a long pause while his pale brown eyes went over me intently, giving me the feeling he was looking into my pockets, examining the birthmark on my right shoulder and counting the money in my wallet. “I am told you are honest, reliable and not without intelligence.”

I wondered who could have told him that, but I put my modest expression on my face and didn’t say anything.

“I have asked you here,” Jefferson went on, “because I would like to hear first-hand this story of the man who telephoned you and how, later, you found this Chinese woman dead in your office.”

I noted he didn’t call her his daughter-in-law. I noted too that when he said “this Chinese woman”, his mouth turned down at the corners and there was distaste in his voice. I guess for a man as old and as rich and as conventional as he, the news that your only son has married an Asian could come as a jar[49].

I told him the whole story, remembering to keep my voice up.

When I had finished, he said, “Thank you, Mr. Ryan. You have no idea what she wanted to see you about?”

“I can’t even make a guess.”

“Nor have you any idea who killed her?”

“No.” I paused then added, “The chances are this man who calls himself John Hardwick did it or at least he is implicated.”

“I have no confidence in Retnick,” Jefferson said. “He is a brainless fool who has no right to his official position. I want the man who murdered my son’s wife caught.” He looked down at his veined hands, frowning. “Unfortunately, my son and I didn’t get along well together. There were faults on both sides as there usually are, but I realise now that he is dead that I could have been much more tolerant and patient with him. I believe my lack of tolerance and my disapproval of his behaviour goaded him to be wilder and more reckless than he would have been if he had been more understood. The woman he married has been murdered. My son wouldn’t have rested until he had found her murderer. I know his nature well enough to be sure of this. My son is dead. I feel the least I can do now is to find his wife’s murderer. If I succeed, I shall feel I have squared my account with him to some extent.” He paused and looked across the garden, his old face hard and sad. The slight breeze ruffled his white hair. He looked very old but very determined. He turned to look at me. “As you can see, Mr. Ryan, I am an old man. I am burnt out. I get tired easily. I am in no physical shape to hunt down a murderer and that is why I have sent for you. You are an interested party. This woman was found in your office. For some reason the murderer has tried to shift the responsibility onto you. I intend to pay you well. Will you find this man?”

It would have been easy to have said yes, taken his money and then waited hopefully to see if Retnick would turn up the killer, but I didn’t work like that. I was pretty sure I didn’t stand a chance of finding the killer myself.

“The investigation is in the hands of the police,” I said. “They are the only people who can find this man – I can’t. A murder case is outside an investigator’s province.[50] Retnick doesn’t encourage outsiders stirring up the dust[51]. I can’t question his witnesses. It would get back to him and I would land in trouble. As much as I would like to earn your money, Mr. Jefferson, it just wouldn’t work.”

He didn’t seem surprised, but he looked as determined as ever.

“I understand all that,” he said. “Retnick is a fool. He seems to have no idea how to set about solving this case. I suggested he should cable the British authorities in Hong Kong to see if we can find out something about this woman. We don’t know anything about her except she married my son and was a refugee from Red China. I know that because my son wrote about a year ago telling me he was marrying a Chinese refugee.” Again he looked across the garden as he said, “I foolishly forbade the marriage. I never heard from him again.[52]”

“Do you think the British police will have information about her?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“It is possible, but not likely. Every year more than a hundred thousand of these unfortunate refugees come into Hong Kong. They are stateless people with no papers. I have a number of contacts in Hong Kong and I try to keep up to date with the situation. As I understand it, it is this: refugees fleeing from Red China are smuggled by junk to Macau which, as you probably know, is Portuguese territory. Macau can’t cope with the invasion nor do they wish to. The refugees are transferred to other junks sailing for Hong Kong. The British police patrol the approaches to Hong Kong, but the Chinese are patient and clever when they want to get their own way[53]. If a junk carrying refugees is spotted by the police, the police boat converges on it, but there are hundreds of junks fishing the approaches to the island. Usually the refugee junk succeeds in mixing with the fishing junks that close protectively around it and since all junks look alike, it becomes impossible for the police boat to find it. I understand the British police are sympathetic towards the refugees: after all, they have had a horrible time and they are escaping from a common enemy. The search for them ceases once the junk succeeds in reaching Hong Kong’s territorial waters. The police feel that as these poor wretched people have got so far, it wouldn’t be human to send them back. But all these people are anonymous. They have no papers. The British police supply them with new papers, but there is no means of checking even their names. From the moment they arrive in Hong Kong, they begin an entirely new life with probably new names: they are reborn. My son’s wife was one of these people. Unless we can find out who she really was and what her background was, I doubt if we’ll ever discover why she was murdered and who her murderer is. So I want you to go to Hong Kong and see if you can find out something about her. It won’t be easy, but it is something Retnick can’t do and the British police wouldn’t be bothered to do. I think you can do it and I’m ready to finance you. What do you think?”

I was intrigued by the idea, but not so intrigued that I didn’t realise it could meet with no success.

“I’ll go,” I said, “but it could be hopeless. I can’t say what chances I have until I get out there, but right now, I don’t think I have much of a chance.”

“Go and talk to my secretary. She’ll show you some letters from my son that may be helpful. Do your best, Mr. Ryan.” He gave me a slight gesture of dismissal. “You will find Miss West in the third room down the passage to your right.”

“You realise I can’t go at once?” I said, getting to my feet. “I’ll have to attend the inquest and I’ll have to get Retnick’s say-so before I leave.”

He nodded. He seemed now to be very tired.

“I’ll see Retnick doesn’t obstruct you. Go as soon as you can.”

I went away, leaving him staring stonily in front of him: a lonely man with bitter memories tormenting his conscience.